


mango pit

by bluelions, lovebot (bluelions)



Series: magic, foxes, and lore [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Kitsune AU, M/M, Magic, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26189479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluelions/pseuds/bluelions, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluelions/pseuds/lovebot
Summary: Osamu gives Suna the mango pit without knowing the implications. Suna learns a bit about language and love.
Relationships: Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Series: magic, foxes, and lore [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901635
Comments: 2
Kudos: 74





	mango pit

**Author's Note:**

> takes place prior to "corners of my heart"! they're still students here heh
> 
> basically i was cutting mangoes at work a week ago and had a dumb idea :) quick and easy! haphazardly edited not really-
> 
> cw: vomit mention

Fruit is a language everybody speaks. It is gentle and pure and wordless as it sprouts from the belly of youth, where the living room is a warm cocoon for mother and child, where the home quakes with mirth or anger, where life begins. The platter becomes a tongue serving words like a feast for hungry bodies, and the knife is a thought ripening too quickly to sit still. Dialect is the difference between sweet and tart.

When children grow older, clutching the handle tight, and find motions in their muscles they've never been taught, they see the sentences strung before them their entire lives. The love letter in a piece of melon sliced the right size. The adoration in the first juicy bite. The desperate apology in a crowded plate. 

Suna is quite fluent himself, has spoken the language with friends and family. The city has graced him with neighbors of the same; the farmer leaves slices of watermelon for kids to snack on while their parents peruse his produce; the old couple running the tea shop leaves fragrant tangerines inside their package; the temple guardian welcomes apples for offerings and provides peaches in return. Suna has lived his life comfortably wielding the knife in one hand and the platter in the other. 

His own fluency does not prepare Suna for Osamu’s blundering, senseless tongue. 

-

Their lunch break is forty-five minutes long, just enough time for Suna to stop by the bathroom first. He skirts the path along the east wing to find the stalls farthest from the courtyard where everyone else has flocked. He shuts the door, locks it, and comes to face himself in the mirror with searching eyes. When he finds dark circles and dull skin, Suna isn’t surprised; sleep doesn’t come easily when a certain someone plagues his mind whenever it quiets.

Suna has liked Osamu for a while, but they’ll be graduating in a couple years, and there’s no conclusion in sight. He doesn’t have the slightest idea if Osamu might feel the same way. It gnaws at him like a dog to a bone. By the time their two years are up, Suna will look ghastly.

He shoves the sleeves of his tunic up to splash cold water on his face and welcomes the soft pink that returns to his cheeks. Another day of enduring it seems.

Suna meanders back to the main grounds and finds his friends eating at their usual table. They all scoot around, and Suna finds his spot between Komori and Osamu. “Hey, where were ya?” Osamu asks immediately.

“Bathroom,” he answers.

“See, I told ya he was takin’ a shit,” Atsumu says.

“Can you not be disgusting while we’re eating?” Sakusa mutters.

“You  _ do _ need a napkin, Atsumu,” Komori chips in.

Osamu slides a lunch tray over to Suna while they bicker. “Here,” he says, “the lunch lady gave me yer portion.”

Suna snorts. “I’m surprised, considering your reputation.”

“She was skeptical at first,” he admits. Suna cracks a tired smile and digs in.

He figures that when the time comes he will miss this too: the lull of chatter in the schoolyard, Sakusa and Atsumu’s arguing, the minutes dwindling down until they all have to return to class. Suna is comforted by this routine and the inevitable bell to end it all. He can’t say the same for his relationship with Osamu, the boy who makes sure Suna gets to eat and waits for him when the day is done. Suna wishes he knew what all of this would lead up to before he thinks himself to death.

Suna’s vision flutters with shadows and realizes Atsumu and Sakusa are both standing up. “I hate you so fuckin’ much,” Atsumu spits across the table, and then they’re both speed walking away.

Komori scrambles up and trails after them. “I’m gonna make sure they don’t kill each other!”

Suna blinks and turns to Osamu. “Did I miss something-”

“They need to duke it out, I guess.” He shrugs.

Suna thinks about the voracious flames Sakusa is capable of and says, “Tsumu’s gonna get burned.”

“Yer worried about ‘im?”

“Not really. Just stating facts.”

They fall into a comfortable silence interspersed by the clinking of silverware. Osamu’s body heat radiates into his side. It’s making his skin clammy, but even with the space opened up he doesn’t feel like moving away. His arm moves on autopilot and spoons food he doesn’t taste into his mouth.  _ Did those three do this on purpose? Do they know? _

Suna feels a headache coming. “Sunarin,” Osamu calls, sweet and affectionate, and Suna wants to throw up.

“Yes?” he responds without looking up. Osamu shoves a ripe mango beneath his nose and holds up a knife in his other hand. Suna blinks. “Osamu, where did you get the knife?” he asks weakly.

Osamu waves the mango around until Suna opens his hands to catch it. “Stole it from the kitchen.”

“Uh-huh. See this is why the kitchen staff don’t like you.” Suna watches as Osamu procures his drinking flask from his bag and directs Suna’s arms to hover over the ground. “And why didn’t you think of cutting the mango before you brought it?”

Osamu pauses and has the decency to cast him a stricken look. “I dunno.”

Suna sighs. Osamu tips the bottle and pours a steady stream for him to wash the fruit with. It’s strangely intimate, the way his thumbs smooth gently over its red-green skin, cleansing the impurities with Osamu’s water. He gingerly passes it back to him, as if practicing how to give his heart away. Their fingers brush briefly.

“You’re so dumb,” Suna mutters dispassionately.

“I just thought it looked good,” he grumbles back. Suna watches out of the corner of his eye the way Osamu grips the handle of the knife. The sharp blade slices cleanly into the meat of the mango, once on each side of the pit. He scores the halves four across and five down, flips them inside out, and hands a completed turtle to Suna. It’s a gesture Suna knows from his mother, from the Miyas’ mother, from everybody’s mother. “Hey.”

“Hey, what?” Suna accepts the offering and takes an eager bite from an edge piece. Sweetness bursts across his tongue. He can’t help the satisfied hum that rumbles deep in his chest. It calms the roiling in his stomach.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Suna lies, “why?”

“Ya jus’ seem off. Tired.” Osamu eats from the center, smearing juice all over his face. It drips from his sturdy fingers, down his wrist, a rivulet Suna considers draining for himself.

“I’m fine. I’d talk to you about it, wouldn’t I?”

“Hm. I guess ya would.”

Except Suna wouldn’t; not now, not ever. Not when Osamu has plainly said  _ you are familiar to me _ when he thinks there’s a gaping chasm between them. Not when Osamu has told him  _ I care about you  _ in all the ways except the one Suna harbors close to his ribs. Especially not when Osamu’s palm cradles the mango in one hand, nurturing and careful, and a sharp edge in the other, and carves out  _ you are family to me. _

Suna isn’t a genius, but he understands the words Osamu has chosen to feed him and swallows them whole.

The pounding in his head rises to a forte with a vengeance and Suna forces himself to finish the rest of his piece. The sweetness dulls and dies on his tongue. He needs to get out right now, right now, right now-

“Where’re ya goin’?” Osamu’s sticky hand flies out to grab Suna’s arm. He stops, halfway up and off the bench, still reaching for his food tray.

At first glance, Osamu always looks a little distant. There is a far-away star that has caught his attention ever since they were young and no gravity was great enough to tear him away. But Suna knows better than to look into his eyes. Instead, it’s his hands: palms wide, veins thrumming with diluted magic, grounding until they find something to pick at. Sometimes it’s Osamu’s chest: count the seconds of each inhale and exhale, find the cataclysmic interval where anxiety resides.

Suna is not a genius, but he understands the language of Miya Osamu, and he is being astronomically loud.

“I remembered something I forgot to do,” Suna mutters, and Osamu’s grip tightens.

“Don’t ya want the last piece?” Osamu asks.

Suna honestly frowns. His words, the almost visible tremble in his hand, and the staccato of his breath are not lining up.

Confused, he starts to respond, but cuts himself off when Osamu holds up the last piece indeed. The mango pit, already skinned, sits glistening orange in Osamu’s hand. Suna’s brain short-circuits, and for a brief moment, he can imagine Osamu had reached into his own chest and ripped out his own bleeding, dripping heart for him. “What the fuck are you doing?” Suna hisses.

Osamu has the audacity to look confused. “I’m givin’ ya the pit? It’s the best part-”

“Yes, I  _ know _ it’s the best part.” Suna, forgetting his own fingers are still covered in mango juice, presses them to his temple. “You can’t just  _ do _ that.”

“But I  _ am _ ,” Osamu argues, shoving it towards him. Suna reflectively flinches backwards. “I saved it for ya!”

“Oh my god, don’t tell me that!”

“What’s yer deal?”

If an asteroid were to hit the earth, or the gods came down to smite everything in their path, Suna would welcome it gladly because Osamu can’t be serious right now. “Do you even know what that means? Do you have any consideration for me?”

“It’s not that serious!” Osamu shouts.

Suna stares hard, and Osamu lets him. His face has been one that Suna’s always adored, but he’s quite close to punching it especially when he figures out that Osamu really  _ doesn’t _ know what he’s doing. He’s just nervous for no reason.

He slowly reaches for the pit and takes it between his fingers, keeping his eyes trained on Osamu for any hint of a tell. Nothing.

“You are extraordinarily dumb,” Suna tells him.

Osamu doesn't get to respond because their trio of friends come barging into their bubble. “So good news: nobody got seriously hurt!” Komori announces. He’s dragging Sakusa and Atsumu by the arms, looking ruffled and miffed. “Unfortunately- Oh.”

Komori’s eyes have locked onto their exchanging of hands. The other two catch on and have wildly different opinions.

“Great, now you two have a reason to be so close all the time.”

“Samu? Ya didn't even tell me you were doin’ this?”

Komori huge grin doesn't make up for any of it. “Sorry to interrupt a sacred moment, really! If we had known we would've respected it.”

“What are ya talkin’ about?” Osamu wheezes.

“Huh? Didn't you just-”

Suna interrupts quickly, “He didn't do anything! Nothing happened!”

“But he gave you the pit-”

“Zero!”

“It's the earthy connection-”

“Absolutely nothing!”

“And it's so obvious-”

Suna slaps a hand over Komori’s mouth. He shudders as Komori licks his palm, but he endures it and grits out, “He just gave it to me, okay? We're just eating.”

Telepathy isn't one of Suna’s gifts, but Komori seems to get the message and nods sagely. He removes his palm and chirps, “Well, that's no problem then!”

Osamu’s face has scrunched up in the meantime. “I'm confused, what did I  _ do?” _

“Nothing, nothing, everything's fine,” Suna placates.

Despite only having five minutes left of their break, everyone calms and sits back down. Komori and Atsumu dive into some sort of argument while Sakusa casts them periodic glances. Suna sighs. He doesn't know how to wrap his head around any of this. The mango pit is still fleshy in his hand.

Osamu looks worried for once, perturbed by the huge secret everyone is seemingly keeping from him. “Yer not gonna tell me?” he tries.

“Nah,” Suna says. His teeth sink into the meat of the fruit until he hits the seed, blooming wildly of summer and adoration. “I think you've said plenty.”

Fruit is a language spoken with skin and hands and heard by the tastebuds. It is finite. It is true. No shooting star is worthy enough to prostrate to the absolute of Mother Nature’s gift, to the blind and sublime longing that belongs to Suna Rintarou.

When he locks their ankles together beneath the table and scrapes the pit until it's bare, he thinks that as all languages do, the loudest words are the ones unspoken.

**Author's Note:**

> it is 3am and i have finally finished this it wasn't even supposed to be 2k and i almost derailed from the original intention and plot like a billion times
> 
> thanks for reading <3
> 
> catch me on twitter [@softresetter](http://twitter.com/softresetter)


End file.
